


Dust Our Hearts For Fingerprints

by ladymelodrama



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Beauty and the Beast, Broken people, F/M, broken things, s8 fix it, sansan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22101781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymelodrama/pseuds/ladymelodrama
Summary: A revision to the Sansa/Sandor scene in 8x04. Just because.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 37
Kudos: 119





	1. Sansa

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t read/written much SanSan because I live in the Jorleesi fluff clouds :) But I came across a 8x04 gifset on Tumblr recently that had a really pretty verse written across it (“if they dust his heart for fingerprints, they’d only find yours” or something like that) and hello inspiration. So this idea would _not_ let me go. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve all done this scene to death but there’s always room for a little more, right? 
> 
> P.S. If the creator of that pretty Tumblr gifset ever reads this - *chef’s kiss* to your work <3

**_Sansa_ **

The feast after the battle was a raucous affair, as only the north knew how to indulge in. Drink and kisses flowed freely and no one judged anyone for anything that night. All past sins were washed out by the blood of the fallen, all our terrible histories buried for the night in a haze of unlikely survival, ale and wine.

I smiled and laughed with the rest of them, though my feelings were slightly reserved, as always. As they would be for the rest of my life. Too much had happened for me to ever trust a moment of unbridled joy. When a broken thing is put back together, it’s fixed along ruined edges. And I don’t care how skilled the one who mends it. Or the renewed strength of a reinforced seam. I will _always_ feel those edges. 

Rough, ruined and just a little sharp.

Like smiling while swallowing glass. Even if the shards are small enough now that I don’t always notice them.

As I crossed the feast hall, my ears picked out the lamenting voice of Tormund Giantsbane. “We’ll drown our sorrows, Clegane,” the wildling suggested, as he brought his arm around one of two pretty, lowborn girls who were willing to be a little reckless with their affections. This was followed by Sandor Clegane’s grim reply, muted, nearly growling—his familiar voice settling in my ears like an old song. 

My eyes flickered across the feast hall, finding the Hound, and lingering. I watched him snarl at the wildling. And then I watched him refuse the second girl, with her dark eyes and sultry words, who made the mistake of sitting down beside him.

She visibly jumped when he growled. He was like an angry dog, intent on driving her away. And it worked, as she left his side in a hurry. I didn’t watch her go, didn’t notice her path or which battle-weary soldier of the Long Night would next receive her attentions, perhaps with a more willing reception this time. 

My eyes were fixed on Sandor Clegane, who seemed intent on nursing his ale and his darker thoughts in miserable silence. His grip tightened around the goblet in his hand and the pitcher he poured from, filling it up again. His scowl simmered, his dark hair and rugged features thrown into sharp relief by the surrounding candlelight.

 _Would he chase me away as easily?_ I wondered, a hint of a smile tempting my lips as I guessed the answer. The wine had made me confident. And slightly impulsive.

I decided to find out if I was right.

He noticed as I approached, his head snapping up, ready to rage again. But I caught him off guard and I watched his eyes go just a tad soft with sudden recognition, though his gaze soon dropped again. To his hands, to the glass of ale. The words on his tongue, cruel, raging things I’m sure, left him and he was left speechless as I slid onto the bench across from him. 

I folded my hands before me and brought my lips together, my eyes never leaving his face. I studied the burned side without cowering, noting that the patches of ruined skin were not nearly as widespread as I remembered. 

_Does it still hurt?_ I knew the wounds his brother gave him were old, scabbed and scarred over many years ago, but I wondered just the same. 

After a moment, I murmured, “She could have made you happy. For a little while.”

“There’s only one thing that would make me happy,” he answered with another glower. But the glower was directed at his hands. Not me. And with less fire this time. He was unable to keep his flames of anger as hot as he had with the others.

“What’s that?” I wondered, curious.

“That’s my fucking business,” he grumbled, but finally lifted his gaze back up to mine, holding it steady. As a dare to myself, I didn’t look away. I saw candle flame reflected in his eyes, dancing over dark irises. And I watched his mouth soften further, though his words remained hard-edged and sharp as ever. 

I said nothing in reply, drawing him out with silence. I had a feeling that Sandor Clegane _craved_ silence.

“There was a time you couldn’t look at me,” he said those words flatly, hiding any feelings he might have on the matter behind his drink and the miserable mood he seemed intent on keeping close.

But I knew his bark was worse than his bite. And he didn’t frighten me. Not for a long time.

_You won’t hurt me._

_No, I won’t hurt you, little bird._

“That was a long time ago,” I tipped my head slightly, hearing a slight coolness in my tone. He knew what had happened to me since last we met. And I knew what had happened to him. 

We were both many-times broken.

I added, “I’ve seen far worse than you since then.”

“Aye,” he muttered, again. He shifted, leaning closer across the table with a sudden energy, his mouth twisting into something cruel again. I knew he would taunt me and try to chase me away like the others. I knew he would say things to injure me and I steeled myself for it, making myself a promise. 

I would answer his fire with fire.

I watched the words form in his throat. I saw the light in his eyes flame alive on a blunt phrase that he knew would hurt me the most. Cut deep. But then…an errant draft blew out one of the candle flames at just that moment, shifting the harsh light in his eyes by a degree. The wick smoked as it cooled.

He suddenly swallowed those words back, whatever they were, thinking twice. He said nothing, not yet, taking another drink of ale instead.

“None of it would have happened if you’d left King’s Landing with me. No Littlefinger. No Ramsay. None of it.” He mentioned after a long pause, his tone grim. There was an accusation in his voice, that I stayed, but regret too, that he fled. Without me.

He could have forced me from the city. He was far stronger than me. He could have thrown me over his shoulder and taken me north, even as I pummeled his chest and begged to return to my captors, like a little fool.

But he could have done other things too. He could have pushed Joffrey off the castle walk that day I saw my father’s head mounted on a spike. He could have been a _true_ knight, despite the mangled scars on his face. He could have told me that some men aren’t killers. That some men love and heal and protect and keep the women they love safe. No matter the cost. And to the very last.

All delusions, all nonsense. A stupid, little girl’s fantasy. But he could have said it anyway.

_You won’t hurt me._

_I will never hurt you._

“If I left with you, I would have died with my mother and Robb at the Twins so there was no happy ending for me anywhere,” I exhaled on the bitter, bitter words. “No one escapes their own fate.”

He huffed on a bitter laugh, knowing the truth in my words. 

“Perhaps I would have kept you for myself?” he tried cruel words again, as this was his natural way and he would never be able to shake it off completely. Not without years of practice. He grumbled, “Perhaps I would have been worse than the rest of them together?”

I considered it. Arya told me what he said as he lay dying on that hill in the Riverlands. Even near death, he spit only fire and sour vinegar. 

_And your sister. Your pretty sister. I should have taken her, that night the Blackwater burned…_

He was crass, cruel and rough-hewn. A true monster. With a monster’s hideous features, dread-worn voice and unfeeling hands. 

But I looked at his hands then, remembering how those hands pulled me back from pushing Joffrey from the ledge, how those hands threw his white cloak around me in the Throne Room after Meryn Trant tore my dress and struck me with his sword, and how they lifted me from the dirty floor of that alleyway in King’s Landing. He couldn’t save me from what came later. But he saved me then.

Sandor Clegane may be a monster. But he was _mine_ to command. Then, certainly. Now? Well, perhaps.

“You would never have hurt me,” I replied, those same words still dancing through my head. It was no question.

The dawning realization in his features revealed much. The memory of a night long ago. Of words spoken. And remembered.

“No,” he lingered on the simple word, treating it more like a reluctant vow as he muttered, “I would never hurt you, little bird.”

His lips twitched on the old nickname. And then his gaze dropped to his hands one more time. 

For he couldn’t look at me for long. Just as I couldn’t look at him once upon a time. Our roles had been reversed. I could guess his thoughts easily.

_Unworthy, unloved…_

But I found I _wanted_ him to look at me. More than that, I wanted…

It was impulse again, but I found I couldn’t stop myself. My hand slid forward and came to rest on his own, the one that lay so quiet on the table between us. My fingers slid over his large knuckles, reaching towards his wrist, my thumb caressing his callused skin like a whisper.

Sandor Clegane’s eyes flickered up, unsure. He looked afraid. As if faced with a wall of fire.

I nearly smiled on the idea. That I could instill fear in the Hound.

“Come with me,” I told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure when, but there will definitely be a chapter 2...


	2. Sandor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here's the second chapter. Writing in Sandor's POV always involves epic levels of cursing and I. Love. It. Haha hope you do too! <3
> 
> Thanks for reading, m'dears! :)

**_Sandor_ **

I left the ale on the table, my hand slipping from that brass goblet, as I followed her out of the feast hall and into the outer corridors. I should have finished it. And the pitcher beside it. I should have told her to get herself off that bench and leave. To go back to the safety of her brothers and sister. And to stay the _fuck_ away from me.

But I didn’t. I…couldn’t.

Which will damn me just as much as the rest of my black sins, I’m sure. My soul was signed over to hell a long time ago. 

Didn’t I tell her that?

_We’re all killers here._

Did she forget? Or did she just not care?

“Come with me,” she said. It was a command, leaving no room for argument. But I should’ve argued anyway. Instead, I followed her. Like that pretty silver-and-white direwolf that padded along beside her on the King’s Road all those years ago. 

The one that gave its life for its sister’s sins. The only good thing that came out of that whole mess were the scars left behind on Joffrey’s arm. Too bad the wolf didn’t go for his throat. 

Sansa led me through her father’s house, to quiet, hidden corners that she must have played in as a girl, practicing curtsies, hiding from her septa’s lessons. The halls held a chill now that wasn’t there before, and those charred remnants of the Greyjoys’ fires and Boltons’ bloodlust wouldn’t wash out for a while. Not from stone and mortar. Not from flesh and bone.

But Sansa didn’t seem to mind. This place was her home, scars and all. She’d presided over the dining hall with a regal bearing that was ten times what her bastard brother could manage, even when he wasn’t brooding like a fucking cunt who’d spent too much time with his head in the snow. 

And what did Jon Snow have to brood about anyway, I wondered? Both his sisters could dance circles around him for who suffered more in the last ten years. They’d been little girls thrown to lions and butchers—with their father dead and their fuck-brained brothers miles and miles away. The fact that either of them survived childhood almost made me believe in the fucking gods.

Except what kind of gods would deal out a hand like that to young girls?

Well, Sansa wasn’t a girl anymore. She was so changed, I barely recognized her. She wore black like a widow but the color did her more favors than all those simpering pastels of King’s Landing ever did. And the years had given her a fierce confidence, all forged in pain and fire. 

As we passed the servant’s quarters, her hand trailed to my wrist, released, taken again. Her eyes burned on an impulsive decision, the sudden fire in her burning as red as her pretty hair.

Not a little bird any longer. A _firebird_. 

And what wouldn’t I do to catch a glimpse of her? To feel her hand take mine again and lead me further, into the twisting hallways of Winterfell, into its silent shadows and secret corners, where we wouldn’t be disturbed.

I should have told her no. I should have told her we should go back. But I’m not a knight. I’ve never pretended to be noble or honorable or whatever the fuck they all go on about. White cloaks and garden parties. Fuck it all.

I’m sure if Ned Stark’s ghost was haunting these halls, I’d be a dead man before morning. For his oldest daughter was currently ringing her arms around my neck and pulling my mouth down to hers. Willingly, wantonly. And I couldn’t resist that.

So fuck Ned Stark and fuck the rest of them.

Her lips tasted like red wine and cherries. She’d had too much to drink at the feast. How else to explain this? Didn’t she remember who I was? 

_The burned man, the vicious Hound, Joffrey’s mangy dog…_

Trying to piece it all together would never work. I remember the last time that I was at Winterfell. I remember all those Stark children lined up in a row outside in the courtyard, all innocent and pure as the fucking snow drifts that would blanket this frozen shithole only a few years later. 

And Sansa, the very worst of them. Her naivety was so raw, it nearly bled. 

She wouldn’t look at me then. But she looked at me now, pulling back from our hot, desperate kisses for a moment, a slight breath of air escaping her full lips like a hushed gasp. I resisted the urge to seize that gasp, not letting it go, tasting her lips once more. But I waited, as breathless as her, my chest pounding on whatever was happening between us.

Her hands. 

Her delicate hands, all winter’s chill and pale, pale touch, slowly came down from around my neck to slide up the rough sides of my face. She was a tall woman but I was taller and she had to lean up, pressing her body flush against mine.

Her fingers traced it all—my jawline, my ragged beard, the coarse locks of hair that fell onto my ruined skin. She pushed my hair back gently, she let her fingers linger on the old burns and mottled skin, patches of criss-crossed scars so ugly that I’d avoided glancing in mirrors or standing water since I was a boy. At this point, I don’t remember what I look like—the same lumbering monster, but older, I’m sure.

She stared at my scars, with a wide-eyed fascination in her grey-blue eyes that left me second-guessing and fumbling for thought.

I swallowed hard, the taste of her kisses still fresh on my stunned lips.

“Does it hurt?” she wondered, curiously, wondering over burns I’d received years before she was born. She was being naïve, once again. Or kind. Either way, I couldn’t fault her for it. With her hands on my face and her eyes searching mine intently, I couldn’t fault her for anything.

“No, Sansa,” I used her given name then. I don’t know why. I’m not sure if I’d ever used it before. I tried to remember but I was having trouble recalling anything in that moment. My voice curled on the syllables of her name like a song.

_Sansa, Sansa, Sansa…_

The fire in her eyes flickered on her name, flaming alive again, satisfied, _pleased_. And then we were kissing once more, her lips both hungry and soft, opening beneath mine like a wildflower in the midday sun. Or some other fucking nonsense that Septon Rey might have said. My kisses back were rough and plain, as I’m always rough and plain, but she seemed to like it. To want it even.

Her hands were on my chest now. They were wandering like my own, which had cradled her head, all those cascades of red, red strands falling between my fingers, before I wrapped one of my hands loosely around her throat, my thick thumb sinking into the hollow of her collarbone.

I pushed her back against the wall of our hidden alcove, bracing one hand against the grey-black stone, while looping the other around her waist. She grinned on the man-handling, dragging me closer to her with her hands twisted in the fabric and leather of my shirt. Our tongues had found each other, playing at the edges of those kisses, sinking further, faster, deeper.

Was this happening? Was I dreaming? Was I dead?

 _We’re all dead men, Clegane._ Beric Dondarrion’s gravelly voice was in my head, reminding me that life is short and time’s a vapor. But that wasn’t the whole story, was it? Not if a drunken red priest could bring a lesser lord back to life six times.

Not if Sansa Stark could kiss me until I couldn’t see straight. Only hours after a horde of fucking dead men tried to kill us all.

But I stopped. I had to stop, breaking off abruptly, her lips coming off mine reluctantly. She licked at her bottom lip, her eyes questioning. _Don’t you want this too?_ My head was spinning on wine and ale and her many kisses and I struggled to find the words. 

Words about being alone. Truly alone. Words about locking your heart up in stone. Words about the dangers of fire and trust and the people who are supposed to love you the most.

She understood. I don’t know how, but she guessed my thoughts.

Her hands came up to take the sides of my face once more, gently bringing my forehead down to rest against hers. My eyes closed briefly, as I listened to her sweet, soft voice give me a familiar promise,

“I won’t hurt you either.”


End file.
